J.K. Rowling fans, don't forget to pre-order The Tales of Beedle the Bard, standard edition... Or for true addicts and/or for people with more money than I have The Tales of Beedle the Bard, collector's edition Amazon exclusive.

Living in LA, I see a lot of news about the paparazzi and probably find them more offensive than people in say Iowa. Granted I'm not usually out at 2 am when they're flashing 40000 bulbs in the streets, nor am I on the streets crowded with clubs but considering they're willing to chase people through the streets, run red lights, etc, stalk our beaches, etc I'd just rather they weren't here since they don't stick to places most reasonable people would find fair game. They stalk anywhere even where lots of normal people try to go and don't care how they affect traffic, etc.

So imagine my amusement when the police chief said the following today:

"If you notice, since Britney started wearing clothes and behaving -- Paris is out of town not bothering anybody, thank God -- and, evidently, Lindsay Lohan has gone gay, we don't seem to have much of an issue."

Ok, not sure how someone "goes" gay...

He also said:
"So as far as all this grandstanding and foolishness, waste of city time on this issue -- and the fact that I felt aggravated enough about it to interrupt my workout to come over and set the record straight, LAPD has no intention of participating in this farce."

All of this because people are trying to crackdown on the paparazzi in the LA area. Seems even officials can't agree on the issue as this comes when others were meeting to discuss the issue.

Dear Shia LaBeouf,
You're allowed to be stupid when young, but driving while drunk is not allowed, that's too stupid. Now that you've injured yourself, someone else in your car, an innocent driver who happened to be on the same street as you, damaged some cars -- STOP. I'd like to see you live to film some more movies and most of all, I live in LA and would prefer you not kill me someday.
Love,
Me

In other celeb news --- The Dark Knight is now at $314.2 million, closing in on Iron Man, the number #1 money maker this year at $315 million. It's the 23rd top grossing movie thus far -- and it's been out 10 days. Go Joker! Err Batman! Err both.

We watched Gangs of New York tonight, yes I am that beyond the times. I've said it before, I'll say it again, I'll never understand why there seems to be so much Leo hate. I think he's an awesome actor and have since I saw him in What's Eating Gilbert Grape. $6 at Best Buy, and worth it I thought. The first half of the movie was totally losing my boyfriend, he couldn't "get" Leo's character at all, I did, but even when I explained to him what I was thinking he still thought it all made no sense. I thought it made perfect sense though *shrug*

Also watched Batman: Gotham Knight tonight, which kind of reminded us of the concept behind Animatrix. It was 6 Batman short stories, animated by different artists. Clearly meant to take place after the events of Batman Begins. The animation in most was beautiful. A few of the shorts didn't seem to work as well as others. One neither me nor my bf could get interested in at all. Overall it was ok though. For the $12 we paid for it, it was a good deal, they had a $25 version, I don't know what made it so special but I seriously doubt anything from this series could make it worth $25.

I forgot to mention here, John Adams had the most Emmy nominations. This is a big YaY in my home as my boyfriend did some freelance work on it. No, he wasn't nominated, but his boss was! If you haven't seen it, you should.

Though, as much as I loved it, I must admit I'm a little confused about how it's nominated for sound categories. Gotta admit we had to turn out tv to megablasting to hear some parts when actors seemed to be mumbling. Otherwise we loved it, and not because it helped pay bills here, really.

So Christian Bale is being accused of assaulting his mother and sister... which he denies. And the will Batman get him jokes have begun. Ugh. Hard to take it seriously when cops let him go.

The Dark Knight is a much bigger story that his personal family crap... Grabbing the opening weekend record taking in $155.34 million! w00t!

Ok so except for Hellboy 2 I have seen all of the Summer Movies I wanted to see in the theater now. I'll wait for Hulk on to show up on TV or DVD. At this point I might even wait for Hellboy that way, we'll see...

The Dark Knight owned the Summer season... I think I'm now officially a Superman AND Batman fangirl both, and I thought one comic book franchise was enough because most really don't interest me. Spiderman? Never had an interest. Hulk? No interest but do wanna see Ed Norton's performance in this Summers movie... X-men... no interest. Etc.

So for me the Summer went like this:
The Dark Knight
Wall-E
Ironman
Hancock
Indy

Why did they do the X-Files movie this summer? Are they stupid? In a summer with such big movies it seems like a bad time to do it. Ironman and Hancock = a tie for me actually... I still really can't decide which is third.

I heard one reviewer say Robert Downey, Jr's performance was as good as Heath Ledger's Joker performance.... Now I think Robert Downey Jr. is a great actor, he's made some bad films almost watchable, but nope. If not for Health Ledger's joker he could have maybe stolen the show this Summer, but Heath Ledger and the other actors in The Dark Knight were great or beyond great in this movie. Heath Ledger and Aaron Eckhart especially stole the show. WOW. Go see it now if you haven't.

This, of course, means next summer is doomed to suck.

Andy Dick was arrested for suspicion of sexual battery and possession of marijuana. Sexual battery being he groped a 17 year old or something and exposed her breasts. He also had a xanax in his pocket. Ok but he was arrested just after 1am... If that's when it happened why was a 17 year old hanging out in parking lots at 1 am? Not that she asked for it but ugh, good way to find yourself in trouble.

I only just saw the first Hellboy in the past week but I can't wait for the second one and I must say the tv ads for it are just great marketing. Instead of previews they're running ads with of him with tv stars and one I've seen was a PSA spoof. Loving Ghosthunters as I do, I had to love this:



Damn you Hellboy, I kept saying Batman was my next movie and you come out before it!

We went and saw Hancock, I've gotta say they really did one thing right with the marketing of this movie. They put some of the good stuff in the previews, but they left major plot points out of every preview I saw anyway. I'm soooo sick of previews that give away everything in the trailers and then you wonder why you spent over $10 to see an extended version of what you've already seen for free already. So now I've see 4 summer movies - Wall-E, Ironman, Hancock, and Indy. 2 left we plan to see = Batman and Hellboy 2. I'll see Hulk later on PPV or HBO or something because I'm not interested in Hulk but do want to see Ed Norton's version of him.

So now my rating? Wall-E is #1, IronMan and Hancock I'm torn on which is 2 and which is 3 I think they'd go back and forth in the ratings depending on my mood, and #4 is Indy. Sorry I just do not get Indy. I mean I saw one of two of the originals back in the day and they have their moments but I just don't GET why they're soooo huge. I had as much or more fun making fun of it than I did watching it, is that why people like it? If not, then it's just ok, but not great.

Hancock wasn't perfect but was entertaining and my bf was quite thrilled they didn't have some super villain as he thinks they overdo those in superhero movies and he wanted to see one with a more human like hero. In fact he's pretty sure this summer was meant for him... Hancock = a human like hero fighting normal human problems and Wall-e. He was wondering why all of these geeks doing 3-D were giving us nothing but talking animals when they should have wanted to make ROBOTS ;)